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The Immunity Syndrome
' |image= |series= |production=60348 |producer(s)= |story= |script=Robert Sabaroff |director=Joseph Pevney |imdbref=tt0708467 |guests=John Winston as Lt. Kyle Frank da Vinci as Lt. Brent Eddie Paskey as Lt. Leslie William Blackburn as Lt. Hadley Robert Johnson as Starfleet Voice |previous_production=Obsession |next_production=A Piece of the Action |episode=TOS S02E18 |airdate=19 January 1968 |previous_release=A Piece of the Action |next_release=A Private Little War |story_date(s)=4307.1-4309.4 (2268) |previous_story=Obsession |next_story=A Piece of the Action }} Summary The Enterprise is en route to Starbase 6 for rest and relaxation, when the communications officer, Lt. Uhura, receives a garbled distress call, but all she can make out are sector coordinates and the name of the ship, the USS Intrepid, manned entirely by Vulcans. Suddenly, the signal is gone and First Officer Spock, himself half-Vulcan, shudders and feels uneasy. When asked what is wrong, he replies that the Intrepid has "died". Starfleet sends a priority message to Captain Kirk and orders him to investigate Sector 39J where contact has been lost with the colonies in the Gamma 7A system, also the last known position of the Intrepid. Arriving there, Ensign Chekov reports that the sensors show no life readings in the system of a billion inhabitants. Meanwhile, Spock is checked out by Chief Medical Officer Dr. McCoy in sickbay where he explains he felt the combined shock and terror in the minds of 400 of his fellow Vulcans aboard the Intrepid as they died. McCoy is amazed that Spock felt anything with the great distance involved between the two ships, but admits there is a lot about Vulcans he still doesn't understand. Spock returns to the bridge just as Uhura announces she has lost contact with Starfleet. Kirk has Spock scan a dark ominous form that appears on the main view screen. Spock reports it is some kind of energy turbulence; probably responsible for the death of the system inhabitants and the Intrepid crew. Kirk launches a sensor probe into the void. Suddenly a painful, high pitched noise fills the ship that renders half the crew sickened or faint. Sensor scans from the probe reveal nothing, so Kirk orders the ship to get in closer. When it does, the piercing sound returns and all the stars disappear from the main view screen. The ship is now in a desolate void of nothingness. Dr. McCoy then reports that the crew are getting worse and it appears everyone seems to be dying. Spock surmises that the ship has crossed some kind of negative energy boundary where their physical properties cannot exist. All ship's energy, as well as the crew's life force, is beginning to be slowly drained away. Spock remarks that the dark void is not a "galactic nebula such as the Coal Sack." Kirk orders full reverse, but the ship moves forward deeper into the void. If forward thrust is applied the ship slows down. Chief engineer Scott, frantically tinkers with controls to give the ship the power it needs, but nothing seems to respond. The huge expenditure of ship's energy attracts what appears to be an 11,000-mile wide amoeba, which appears on the main screen. Kirk launches another sensor probe which reveals the creature is protoplasmic in nature. McCoy believes it is a massive single-celled entity that feeds off raw energy but he needs more data to confirm this. Spock decides to get the information McCoy needs and requests to pilot a shuttlecraft in closer to the creature. Kirk reluctantly accepts Spock's suicidal request and allows him to launch. He pilots the shuttle up to the creature and penetrates the outer skin, then makes his way toward the cell's nucleus. Spock transmits data and keeps a log of his progress during the journey. He believes the creature may be ready to reproduce and suggests it can be destroyed from the inside, but his details become garbled and then cuts off. Kirk and McCoy determine that if the creature begins to reproduce, it will spread rapidly and pose a serious threat to the galaxy. They must do something now, but the Enterprise only has an hour left until all energy is expended. As Kirk and McCoy meet together to discuss various strategies, Kirk suddenly realizes that if various activities in the zone have an opposite effect, then using antimatter on the organism should kill it, but realizes the Enterprise will have to journey into the creature. Kirk takes the Enterprise into the cell's body to plant a bomb within the creature that will destroy it. Since the thing has negative energy, Kirk orders Chief Engineer Scott to prepare an antimatter bomb with a timer set for a seven minute delay. The bomb is fired into the cell's nucleus and the Enterprise backs out using what little power remains. With seconds remaining, Spock's shuttle is finally located and Kirk tells Scotty to retrieve it in a tractor beam. With power levels nearly exhausted, the ship makes its way out of the creature just as the bomb explodes. The creature is annihilated, and the shock throws both the Enterprise and the shuttle back into normal space. Both ships survive with only slight damage and Mr. Spock returns his craft to the ship. Errors and Explanations Ruminations # Obviously the crew of Picard’s Enterprise hasn’t spent much time reading the logs of Kirk's Enterprise. In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Where Silence Has Lease, Picard and company encounter an area of blackness as well. When Picard asks Data to check the records for any similar occurrence, the android can ﬁnd nothing. The visual appearence of each area are completely different. Plot Oversights # As Spock reaches up to open the doors to the shuttle bay so he can depart from the ship, McCoy grabs his hand. If you look closely at the atmosphere level indicator on the control panel, you will see that the shuttle bay isn't pressurized! Was Spock really going to open the personnel doors to the shuttle bay before it had a breathable atmosphere? There is probably an atmosphere retaining forcefield linking the entrance to the shuttle. # Didn't McCoy help equip the shuttle prior to this scene? If he did, why isn't the shuttle bay already pressurised? The depressurisation must have occurred after McCoy finished helping to prepare the shuttle and left the shuttlebay. # When Kirk suggests using anti-matter to destroy the organism, the crew seems genuinely impressed with the captain's brilliance. Didn't they recently use antimatter to destroy a creature in Obsession? They're probably wondering why they didn't think of it first! # After configuring the probe to carry the antimatter, Kirk has Chekov set the timer for a detonation in seven minutes. Then they lodge it next to the chromosomes and make a mad dash out of the organism. The episode gives no indication that the probe is drifting away from its target. Why, then, can't Kirk set the time for ten minutes or ten hours and give the ship a few moments to spare? Setting the timer for longer could result in the organism having an adverse effect on the antimatter. Equipment Oddities # After McCoy refuses to wish him good luck, Spock boards the shuttle. It faces to the left. Then the shuttle rotates on its platform and finally departs. Therefore, when Spock boarded the shuttle it faced the front of the Enterprise. Then the shuttle turned around and. finally ﬂew out the back of the ship. Yet in Journey to Babel, the shuttle carrying Ambassador Sarek lands, turns around, and the ambassador deplanes (deshuttles?). At this point the shuttle should be facing the back of the Enterprise, since the shuttle turned around. Yet the scene clearly shows that the shuttle faces left! Spock and McCoy used doors on the other side of the shuttle bay. # Kirk still hasn't adjusted his mirror to the correct height. The scene in his quarters has the mirror chest high. See my explanation in the entry for Journey to Babel. # Great confusion surrounds which button is the one for communications on the arm of the captain’s chair. For most of this episode Kirk uses the top button, but at least once he uses one of the middle buttons. This could be an experimental setting. Nit Central # John A. Lang on Friday, June 08, 2001 - 6:55 pm: The most important note of this episode is that Kirk is smarter than 400 Vulcans. Sophie Hawksworth on Monday, June 11, 2001 - 5:05 pm: Spock theorises that the Intrepid encountered the organism while it was low in energy - hungry. The Vulcans had less time to act. Category:Episodes Category:The Original Series